Keeping the Baby But Dumping the Bathwater

I am getting a lot of good reading from the varied books of my communications courses. But every so often something just pops out at me. I sit there bewildered, wondering if the writer really said that, did they really use that example, to mean what they intended, expecting everyone just to agree with it, and not recognize the “you must be kidding” reaction it would get from so many people who I know.

I have a couple of examples.  The first used the idea of term limits, and the thought processes that lead people to support them:

Beliefs are inherent in the manner in which persons evaluate concepts or objects. Consequently, when external messages affect beliefs, they are likely to affect attitudes as well. For example, if registered voters in South Dakota express the attitude that term limits imposed on their governor are a good idea, a potential host of beliefs are implicated. One such voter might reason in the following manner:

• Gubernatorial term limits will have the effect of increasing the number of new and innovating ideas in government. (Belief)
• An increasing number of new and innovative ideas generated by elected officials will result in more government services at lower costs. (Belief)
• More government services and lower taxes constituted improved government. (Attitude)
• Improved government is a good idea. (Attitude)
• Therefore, gubernatorial term limits are a good idea. (Attitude)

I read this and thought, did it never occur to this guy that most people I know in favor of term limits want it to encourage a less active government, not the more active one he is envisioning. Yet that idea never seems to cross his mind. The assumption that all people want more out of government is too deeply ingrained in is psyche.  Which is too bad.  Otherwise the article was quite interesting.

The second quote is about “terministic screens.” Yeah, I’d never heard the term before either.  Just read, I think the context helps you understand:

There are many signs in our culture of the calcification of terministic screens. To take only one example, recent tell-all books on the Bush administration have revealed what the mainstream media has treated as a cavalier willingness to ignore the facts. Although, clearly, fact ignoring has been a strength of the administration, I think there is something else at work here. The terministic screen used by many conservatives has become so calcified that inconvenient facts are automatically discounted or ignored. Data indicating that tax cuts are producing deficits that are simply unsustainable is met with the response that Reagan proved deficits don’t matter. The actuality that Reagan signed laws raising taxes several times after 1982, because his tax cuts also produced unsustainable fiscal policy, is simply ignored. Precisely the same point undoubtedly could be made about the calcified worldviews of a group of committed socialists, 1960s liberals, Greens, and so forth, assuming that you could find a room small enough to hold such a group comfortably.

I liked this author’s logic, but his examples seemed lopsided and divorced from it. Conservatives are the ones with this calcification problem, along with a few socialists, old liberals (not the new ones), and Greens, groups so small almost any room is too big to fit their remaining numbers in. His examples remind me of ” There’s always a way to work things out if people are just willing to be reasonable!” where the one side is actually anything but reasonable (you need to read the link to really understand).

References

Boster, F. (2006) Communication as Social Influence, In Shepherd, G, St. John, J. Striphas, T.  Communication as… Perspectives on Theory, Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications Inc. (pp. 180-186)

Rowland, R. (2006) Communication as Rational Argument, In Shepherd, G, St. John, J. Striphas, T.  Communication as… Perspectives on Theory, Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications Inc. (pp. 180-186)